riots

There are very few places that are so terrible, so utterly tinged with some dark and malignant energy that they simply must be destroyed. Like some cursed doll or haunted house there is no saving them, save for the holy and sacred cleansing power of fire.

Allison Kilkenny writes at the Nation: Tens of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Spain and Greece this week in response to ongoing budget cuts and high unemployment. In Spain, unemployment…

Atlantic Cities describes the 8-bit-style smartphone game RIOT, a thought-provoking attempt to capture the liminal state which occurs during uprisings when order breaks down. I’d rather have my kids playing this than a game which makes them Navy SEALs:

“Riot” is a developing project in Italy that’s led by film-and-game director Leonard Menchiari, who previously did cinematography for “Half-Life” creator Valve Corporation. The atmospheric little simulator of bedlam, which runs on iOS or Android phones, is inspired by real-life political turmoil from around the globe.

There’s a hefty element of strategy involved, with the player taking on either the role of the agitators or the truncheoned legions of police trying to maintain order.

The developers have received modest funding so far on their Indiegogo page. If they collect enough cash, they hope to enrich the simulator by traveling to the sites of recent uprisings in Greece, Egypt and Italy to interview people involved in the conflicts.

I live in a retail-dense area, and treat Black Friday like the zombie apocalypse: Stock plenty of food, lock the doors and stay the hell home. Every year, videos like this confirm that I’ve made the right decision.

The mob of skateboarders and skate fans who ran amok through Hollywood on Saturday night, captured on a YouTube video by a driver caught in the middle of the mayhem, garnered national attention just as it attracted a swift crackdown by riot police.

Skaters were seen vandalizing businesses and throwing bottles, while bystanders are seen running — resulting in the deployment of more than 100 Los Angeles police officers in riot gear…

Brain Merchant writes at Motherboard: What’s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more…

About 2,000 Chinese employees of an iPhone assembly company fought a pitched battle into the early hours of Monday, forcing the huge electronics plant where they work to be shut down.

Authorities in the northern city of Taiyuan sent 5,000 police to restore order. On Monday evening, paramilitary police with riot shields, helmets and batons guarded one entrance of the massive factory complex, while an announcement over loudspeakers said there had been a criminal incident the night before and urged people to respect the law.

Employees and people posting messages online accused factory guards of provoking the trouble by beating up workers at the factory, which is owned by the world’s largest contract maker of electronic goods.

Midday summer sport for the 1 percent? Gawker writes: Pavel Durov, founder of the popular Russian Facebook-alike VKontakte, took a bread-and-circuses approach to generosity over the weekend, spending time with VK’s vice president…

What did civil disobedience look like a century ago? Considerably calmer and more formally dressed. Riots broke out after busloads of suffragettes poured into central London, resulting in the police arresting women for their own safety. From the British Film Institute:

A suffragette procession in Trafalgar Square led by Sylvia Pankhurst results in a riot in Whitehall. Policemen are seen escorting Miss Pankhurst away.